Sam Selvon is one of the important writers who contributed to the remarkable development of West Indian fiction in the 1950s and 1960s. Within recent years his work has been critically examined by scholars from several countries. To date he has published ten novels and written two screenplays, numerous short stories, several books of fiction for children, and many plays for radio and television. But even if he had written nothing else, A Brighter Sun (1952) and The Lonely Londoners (1956) assure him a permanent place in the history of West Indian literature.

Born in South Trinidad on 20 May 1923, Samuel Dickson Selvon, the son of an Indian father and a half-Indian, half-Scottish mother, graduated from San Fernando's Naparima College in 1938. Selvon grew up in Trinidad's multiracial society and regards himself as a creolized West Indian, as he has suggested in more than one interview. But he has a strong sense...